


The Silver Flute

by EphemeralSonder (MermaidMayonnaise)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, I wrote this in 7th grade!, backdated work, heh. I found this today, it's a prerequisite to the story that i wrote this year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/EphemeralSonder
Summary: “Saraii,” she whispered, “why would you do this? We didn't do anything to you.”“What do you mean?" Saraii replied weakly. "I haven’t done a thing.”





	The Silver Flute

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my English class in seventh grade. I edited it a bit for flow and punctuation, but otherwise it's untouched; references to "Harry Potter" and "The Search for WondLa" and all. 6.25.19

A silver flute dropped from the sky-- and clonked a girl conveniently standing under it in its path on the head.

“Ow!” Saraii-- for that was the girl’s name-- screeched. Rubbing her bruised noggin resentfully, she picked up the flute, which glistened coldly in the sun. Pleased with her find, Saraii began to play, filling the harsh winter air with its clear, piping notes, when a curious feeling filled her. It felt like someone was tugging on the thread of her soul, unraveling its fibers. 

Shrugging, Saraii shelved the thought and walked back home. Huts were scattered through a brief clearing in the wooded forest, accented by caves, hammocks, and nests. For the _shapeshifters_ \-- but she would never become one of them; she simply wouldn’t let it happen. Her brooding was interrupted by a hawk fluttering down to greet her, gazing with intelligent eyes.

Saraii sighed. “Kay, you don’t always have to show off your--” here she made air quotes, “--talent.”

“Yeah, I know,”  sighed Kay, a tall and lanky teenager who never seemed to have enough to eat. He imitated their LifeGuide, “‘Since World War III, the world was destroyed by the atomic bombs, and so the government rebuilt life chemically. This caused a mutation in our species, causing some of us to be able to shift forms of animals.’”

“In a nutshell,” Saraii muttered, but as she opened her mouth to spout more negativity, Kay turned pale and staggered. “Kay, what’s wrong?” Saraii said as she jumped back in surprise.

Gasping for air, Kay collapsed, but before he fainted, he said in a strange deep adult voice, “Find the thing that has done this sin. Avenge me.” Saraii, went white, but she regained her senses fast enough and laid down her flute, which she had been gripping senselessly until this point, carried Kay to her hut and laid him on her bed.

“I’ll correct this. I will.” She went back to her flute, looking quite battered, and picked it up. “You couldn’t possibly be the source of this--” but then she cut herself off, looking around in horror. All of her people, her childhood playmates, her friends, everyone, lay on the ground in deathly stillness. 

Saraii, stricken with grief, ran to another one of her good friends, Lan, who was coughing weakly, lying down but trying hard to sit back up.

“Saraii,” she whispered, “why would you do this? We haven’t done anything to you.” 

Saraii replied weakly, “What do you mean? I haven’t done a thing.”

“Look at yourself, and you will see.”

Saraii looked down and began to feel lightheaded. Her tan skin had become white, her knuckles bulging, clothes ragged. “What’s happening?” she asked, as a cyclone began to whirl black as pitch around her, and her flute torn from her hand. Music started to emanate from it, echoing ghostly in her ears.

 _Welcome, Saraii._ The music had started to take a humanlike form, a phantom woman. She was oddly familiar, Saraii realized. _I have waited for you a long time._ A face she had known since birth, torn away, never to be seen again. 

“M-mom? What’s happened?” Saraii felt shaken, lightheaded. “Why are you like this?”

Her mother smiled, but it was a smile full of insanity, not with love and care as Saraii had once remembered. _The government is corrupt, Saraii. They took me away after I refused to give you up. But I overpowered them._ She laughed. _Dictator Maloy is a fool. Come join me, Saraii. Together we will overthrow them. Take my hand._

“No.” Saraii looked up, shaking. “I don’t know you,” she whispered, her voice cracking with despair, “but I don’t want to.” She knew, in her heart, that her mother was gone. That there was only this creature, this _thing,_ in its place.

Saraii gathered her energy, strengthened her resolve, and leaped for the flute. Catching it in her hand, she swung it like a baseball bat at the phantom. It hit it in the head with a _thunk_ sound, and the demon collapsed and was gone. At that second, the winds began to howl more fiercely around her, whipping the oxygen from her lungs, and all went black.

**Several hours later**

Saraii awoke in an unfamiliar place, with her silver flute (still in a battered condition) beside her. Jumping up from her uncomfortable bed, she looked around, taking in her surroundings. She was in something like a prison cell and, unfortunately, she recognized it. It was The Burrow-- a prison for people who had committed bad, bad crimes.

Kay grimly came into the room, and Saraii jumped up. “Kay, what happened? Why am I here?” Kay, said nothing, just roughly gripped her arm and dragged her out. Saraii was starting to have a bad feeling in her gut. “Kay?”

“SILENCE, WITCH!” He yelled. She jumped back in surprise. 

“Kay?” 

Silence. Saraii lost her temper. “KAY, KINDLY TELL ME WHAT IN ORBONA IS HAPPENING!” Kay said nothing, but dragged her to a stake, placed on a pile of logs. Coldly, he snapped his fingers. The whole village, some in animal form, some in human, roughly grabbed her and tied her to the stake. Saraii’s eyes began to burn. “What are you doing?” She yelled. “Why _me?”_

The crowd of people, the people that she had known since birth, started chanting in unison, “BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!” Saraii desperately pulled at her bonds, straining to get free-- but in vain.

Kay stepped forward, and without a glance at her pleading eyes, and lit the logs, and let the flames burn, immune to Saraii’s last scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my day and kudos make the world go round.


End file.
